You’ve seen them everywhere, titles ranging from ‘The Ultimate Guide to Fireplaces’ (yes it’s real!) to ‘The Ultimate Guide to Marketing’, but why exactly are these ultimate guides popping up so frequently and should your business be doing them too?
When it comes to putting together a good content marketing strategy, put simply, you need to do three things:
- Research and target the right keywords
- Create excellent content to hit those keywords
- Share your content with as many people as possible
The keywords you find can range from 30 searches a month to 20k a month and beyond. So, if you’re looking to target the higher end keywords (and that’s actually possible for you), you’ll need to create some seriously exceptional content to help you rank.
Enter ultimate guides.
What are ultimate guides?
Ultimate guides are essentially the best possible guide you can find on any given topic. They should contain all the information you need to know on your selected topic. In fact, they’re so detailed and helpful the reader shouldn’t need to go anywhere else to get the information they need.
Why ultimate guides work
Creating an ultimate guide for your business’ blog takes time and research to get right. So, you probably want to know why you should even bother. Below are 4 reasons why ultimate guides work and why you should be adding them to your content strategy today.
1. They’re attractive to readers
Do any search on the internet and what you’ll find are thousands of articles claiming to answer your burning question. But take a look at all the titles, and they only seem to answer part of that question.
Up pops an ultimate guide, just one article you have to read to get all the information you need – you can bet you’re going to click on that!
If you’ve ever wanted a way to look more appealing in a search engine, this is it. Couple that with a truly valuable article and you’re onto a winner. What’s more, you don’t have to use the title ‘Ultimate Guide’, you could use:
- Essential Guide
- Unrivalled Guide
- Complete Guide
- And more
2. They demonstrate your authority
The simplest way to demonstrate your knowledge and authority in your field is by showcasing it. Your ability to create an ultimate guide in your niche shows your potential clients or customers that you seriously know what you’re talking about before they even get in touch with you.
3. Ultimate guides build trust
Picture this, your potential client/customer is searching for some much-needed information to help them solve a problem with their website. They type their issue into Google and up pops your ultimate guide.
They click and scroll through to find not only the solution to their problem but some other information they didn’t know they needed.
Not only have you just saved them time and probably money but a lot of stress too. As the saviour of this potential client/customer you’ve built trust within just a few minutes (skip to the ‘what’s usually missing’ section to see how you can capitalise on this).
4. They’re great for SEO
I’ve moved this point to last, not because it’s the least important, but because your audience and readers should come first. Good SEO gets you to the top of Google, but your readers keep you there.
Ultimate guides rank for more than just one keyword
Ultimate guides usually cover a slightly more broad topic, so the detailed nature of the guide lends itself to containing lots of sub-keywords.
For example, if you’re creating ‘The Ultimate Guide to SEO’, then your sub-keywords could be ‘SEO in 2020’, ‘domain authority’ and more.
By creating one piece of unforgettable content, you could be ranking for multiple similar keywords – making your content stretch further.
They attract links and shares
Ultimate guides by nature attract backlinks and sharing.
Your guide is so filled with information and value that by sharing it, the sharer gets some kudos by association. After all, it’s much easier to link to an ultimate guide, than 5 articles all covering a similar topic.
To make your guide even more shareable, you could:
- Make sure to include social sharing buttons
- Add a shareable infographic
- Create a video version of the guide
- Add tweetable links
- And more
What’s usually missing from ultimate guides
Ultimate guides work well to hit those targeted and lucrative keywords, but unless there’s some thought and strategy behind them, they can bring in a lot of visitors, but not much else.
Before writing your guide, think about what the purpose is:
- To inform readers about a topic?
- Build brand trust?
- Generate email subscribers?
- Create new leads?
- Sell products
This purpose will then fuel your guide. There’s no use in creating the best content possible if your intention isn’t right. Make sure to include a call to action and gear your content up to achieve your goals.
You’ve solved your readers’ problems, capitalise on that by requesting something simple in return.
Roundup
Ultimate guides are not going anywhere anytime soon, and while they’re just starting to gain traction, now’s the time to get creating them for your business.
Want a skilled content marketer to create yours? Get in touch and let’s chat.
Featured image by Smart